| Lost in the AndesNo.8 April 2001 Floating Burros
This past month did not lack the adventures that so often find us here in Bolivia. One experience involved three burros that we were using to transport supplies from Tomoyo (the community that is an hour and a half walk away) back to our community. The man who owns the burros sent his twelve-year-old son, Glevor to help us. In order to get to Tomoyo to where the supplies were being kept, we had to cross the river, which was almost up to our waists that day. Without anything on their backs, the burros made it across the river easily. As we approached the river on our return to Sorocoto, the burro which was carrying the two huge gas tanks on his back started across the rushing river on his own. All of a sudden the burro lost his footing and went under the water. Our friend Glevor was immediately shouting to us to help the burro and his face revealed his terror of the possibility of losing this animal. The burro was unable to get his balance due to the heavy cargo on his back; therefore he was swept downstream bobbing up and down. Pete immediately jumped in after him to try to get the gas tanks loose, which were tied on with rope. He was able to get one tank off but the burro continued down the river with the other tank on him. Lori then went in after him and got the second tank loose and the burro made his way back to shore. As Lori was helping the burro with the gas tanks, Pete was helping the next burro that had ventured out into the river and was now struggling. As Lori took over with this burro the third burro, who was the baby, started floating downstream and Pete was able to stop her from going further and helped her get to the shore with her parents. This whole time, our friend Glevor was stranded in the middle of the river where there was some higher ground, shouting instructions, terrified that the animals would drown. We slowly herded the animals across the river without their cargo on their backs. Pete gathered the scattered supplies, helped Glevor across the river, and then we loaded the burros again and we were on our way. By the grace of God the burros were alive and not injured, but sadly we had lost one of the weavings that was used as padding on the burro's back. Glevor's mom had spent many hours making that weaving, but as Glevor said afterwards, "Thanks to God we still have the burros."
Teaching the Word
For the past couple of months we have tried to start an informal Bible study on Saturdays with the Christians in the church, but no one has come. This past month, however, we had some people come consistently to our house on Saturday nights and began to learn more of how to study the Bible. It was exciting to see these people read passages for the first time and understand how they could apply these truths to their own lives. Most of these Christians are new in their faith and they do not know much about the Bible. We are wanting to teach them a simple method of studying the Word and also give them a good foundation as far as how the Bible is set up, who wrote it, and the history behind it. We thank God for working in these Christians' lives and giving them a desire to know Him. Not only are the adults starting to come to our house to study, but also the children have been coming for Sunday school. We started in the beginning of the Bible with the story of creation and have just finished the story of Noah this past Sunday. These stories are all new for these children and we are trying to teach them, also, how they can apply the Bible to their lives. We usually play some games at the end, and due to the rain one Sunday the kids learned some inside games: "hot potato" and "heads up- seven up." They loved them!
Man vs. Machine
The rainy season is slowly coming to an end, which means it is time to clean the roads. The men in our area were waiting until the rains were completely over to move the huge rocks, fill in the gaps, and clear off the mudslides, which were blocking the road. However, since the board of directors of FHI were wanting to visit Sorocoto, FHI asked the men to come together and do the work two weeks prior to the date the communities were planning to complete the job. FHI also promised a tractor to come out and help with the hard labor. With this motivation, the men were willing to change their plans and go ahead with the clean up job. For three days the men moved rocks that were as large as four feet in diameter. During these days, the tractor that was promised by FHI was on the other side of the river, unable to cross and help out with the work, because the river was too high. Finally, after the men had done most of the work, the tractor made it across and within the first hour of working, a hydraulic line broke and the tractor was out of commission. What amazed us was the determination and strength of these men to complete a job that would have seemed only possible with heavy machinery.
We thank you for your continued support and prayers and we are encouraged by what we see God doing around us and in us.
In Him
Pete & Lori
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Lost in the Andes
No.9 May 2001Foxes in Bolivia
We had the privelege of hosting Lori's parents, David and B.J. Fox here in Bolivia. We spent almost a week out in Sorocoto where they were able to catch a glimpse of our life in the campo. David and B.J. experienced rich visits in the homes of our friends where they were served bowls full of corn, haba beans, and soup (B.J. was known to pass some of her food to Lori or Pete). They also attended a church service where we sang songs in Quechua and listened to Pete give a lesson in Spanish. At the end of the service the four of us were asked to sing in English, so we chose "Joy to the World." The animal specialist mentioned in the March newsletter was Dr. David Fox. He was able to give several talks about animal breeding, first to the agriculture technicians who all came out to Sorocoto for the day and then to the farmers in our community. God used David's knowledge, skills, and desire to help the people in the campo, to teach these men simple ways to improve their livestock. It was great to see B.J. and David interact with the people, try the foods, help plow the fields, climb the mountain, visit our friends, share in the hurts of the people and pray for them, too. We were blessed by the Lord by the Fox visit and we look forward to more visits from family and friends. So, come on down!
Watilla
Another experience we had with the Fox team was a "day in the campo", including a meal called "watilla". Our friends Alejandro and Marcelina Pacaha invited us to eat lunch on their land way up on the mountain. When we finally made it up to their parcel of land, we found Alejandro harvesting some potatoes as his two little girls were quietly sitting nearby watching him or playing with dirt. Soon after we arrived, Marcelina showed up with a load of kindling to make the fire for lunch. She emptied her load and began to make the "site" for cooking the meal. After finding some good clumps of dirt she began to build an oven; first, the sides and next the top was very carefully built with the dirt clods. We made the fire inside as hot as we could, and then we put out the flame in order to put in the potatoes, corn and haba beans. After we had filled the little oven with food, Marcelina smashed it down and covered the food with the hot dirt. As we were waiting for the food to cook, the two Pacaha boys, ages seven and five, came down the mountain with the family's herd of sheep to eat lunch with us. Nearly a half an hour later, Marcelina uncovered the feast that had been baked perfectly beneath the hot coals of the smashed oven. We all sat around a potato sack as Marcelina tossed hot potatoes, corn, and beans on the sack for us to eat. The kids enjoyed the sardines that were added to the meal. Being harvest time, we are seeing more watillas since it is an easy way to cook as people work in their fields.
Small enterprises
We have learned much about development and how we can help to empower the people through our friend and co-worker Victor Hugo. Recently, Lori has been accompanying Hugo to a neighboring community, K'asa Pata, to help work with a group of young people. We started meeting with this group monthly to study the Bible, cook food, and think of ways to earn for their group. For example, the girls have started to make small weavings for backpacks. After they are finished making the bags, they will be sold in the city, and with that money they are going to buy materials to knit. The guys are going to start raising rabbits to sell as food. They may even try making baseball hats to sell. The group is excited about meeting and trying new things. One important aspect of meeting with them is sharing from God's Word. We asked them yesterday who had a Bible and only one out of the 16 owned one. Hearing about Jesus and God's love is something new for them and we are excited to see what God will do with these young people.
We thank you for your continued support and prayers and we are encouraged by what we see God doing around us and in us.
In Him
Pete & Lori
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Lost in the Andes
No.10 June 2001The Harvest
Standing on top of the mountain that is behind our house, one can see the fields slowly becoming brown again. This change in color means that people are harvesting their potatoes, corn, wheat, haba beans, tarwhee, and oka. Just as we were amazed at how the people planted their fields by hand, we are amazed once again at the reality of harvesting by hand. We have felt privileged to come alongside a few of our friends and assist them in their harvest. This past Wednesday we walked an hour up the mountain with our friend Juan and his wife Cristina to a small "neighborhood" called Estancia. Juan's family has a small stone house and fields where they plant crops such as oka. Oka is a root vegetable that grows similar to the potato; underneath the ground in bunches. This is what Juan was harvesting on Tuesday when we were with him. Juan used his pick to uproot each oka plant and we worked behind him to harvest the oka. Each oka plant had approximately 15 oka on it that we broke off and threw in a basket. We worked all morning until it was lunchtime: a bowl of potatoes followed by a hot bowl of soup. We then worked until the evening when we were served a huge bowl of boiled oka. The oka becomes sweet when it is laid in the sun for three days. Its flavor is similar to our sweet potato.
A Campo Wedding
We attended our first wedding here in the campo last weekend when the son of the church leader was married. The church leader, Simon, who has become a good friend of ours approached Pete a few weeks ago to ask if we would be "padrinos", or sponsors for the wedding cake. We realized that we would not be able to transport a cake from the city to the campo because it would be completely destroyed during travel, so we made six chocolate cakes here in Sorocoto in our tiny oven. We tried to make it look as professional as possible with what we had to work with, but we came up short when we needed icing. The many marshmallows that Lori's parents brought to make s'mores, were melted down to make a beautiful white frosting. With fresh flowers on top of the cakes, they looked great! The wedding lasted all weekend, with the ceremony and huge lunch on Saturday, and then the cake eating and gift managing on Sunday. We arrived mid morning on Saturday to find Simon's yard full with women preparing food. There were many different stations: potato peeling, meat cutting, carrot peeling, chunoa peeling, and pasta toasting. After a couple of hours, it was time for the ceremony inside the church. After the ceremony, we made our way back to the house where the lunch was served. The whole community was in attendance, as well as people from communities down the valley. Simon had asked if we could show a video that day about Jesus since he knew so many people would be there. Later that evening, we were able to pick up a projector and "The Jesus Film" and when we returned to the church, it was full with people waiting to see the movie.
The Ambulance
Pete was on his way to Soroscopa, our neighboring community, when he saw a man carrying another man on his back. Pete immediately went over to them to see what was wrong, and the man who was being carried was in tremendous pain because he had an obstructed gut, a condition that makes the stomach big and hard and nothing can pass through. Pete ran home to say he was taking this man first to the health post in Tomoyo, a 30-minute drive away, and if the nurse could not help this man, he was going to take him to Sucre. After the nurse administered two enemas and nothing was passing through, we realized we were going to take a trip to the city. Pete drove as fast as he could without putting the man in too much pain on the bumpy road. We stayed with him at the hospital for a couple of hours and then did not see him again until a week later at the big wedding where he thanked Pete for taking him to the city, where his life was saved. The next week we drove a woman who was unable to walk and was suffering from severe head pain, to the nearest public transportation that would take her to the city. A few days later we drove our friend Sinferosa to the health post in Tomoyo because she was suffering from dizziness back pain and hemorrhaging. These instances have reminded us of the sad reality of the lack of medical care here in the campo and the possibility of death if they can not get help. We are thankful that God has blessed us in ways that we can help this community.
We thank you for your continued support and prayers and we are encouraged by what we see God doing around us and in us.
In Him
Pete & Lori
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